Russia warns Georgia: The times of jokes is up

One of the leaders of the Chechen terrorists, Ruslan Gelayev, who was seriously wounded in October of the current year is being currently treated in one of the hospitals of Georgia. This was informed by the Russian official news agency RIA Novosti with reference to the informed source, close to Russia’s Defense Ministry. According to that information, the remaining gunmen from Gelayev’s gang (about 150 people) came back from Abkhazia to Svanetia, where they are currently living in several settlements. During the operation to destroy Gelayev’s groups of militants, there were 50 guerrillas killed and about 100 of them were wounded.

The high level of organization and training of the provocative incursion of Gelayev’s gang from the Pankissky gorge in Georgian to the Kodori gorge in Abkhazia (to make a further break-through to the territory of Russia) testified to the fact that it was carried out with the support from the top Georgian authorities, including President Eduard Shevardnadze. The president has recently made this statement in the interview to Rustavi-2 TV channel: “Gelayev is a normal intellectual, educated person and possibly, he is not the terrorist, as they represent him.”

The source informed that all wounded Chechen gunmen and foreign mercenaries were rendered the medical aid in Georgia’s hospitals, and then they go to Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Muslim countries by plane, for further treatment. The long negotiations between Russia and Georgia helped a lot to prevent the armed gunmen walk freely around the streets of Tbilisi, the capital of the republic of Georgia.

So, the official Russian news agency reported scandalous information. There are some suspicious things here too. For example, it is curious that RIA Novosti refers to some source, close to the Defense Ministry, not to a certain official person. In this it was stressed that the information was not official. Either the Russian authorities do not have the real proof of the facts mentioned, or Russia is starting the new game with the Georgian administration. It does not mean however, Gelayev is not in the hospital at all. He can be there, but the political intrigue is more important, than the open confrontation with Shevardnadze’s regime. Such a game has already been before, and Georgia lost as a result – Russia introduced the visa-entry order with this republic. What is going to happen, if Russia officially states that terrorism is prospering in Georgia?

Reuters photo: A soldier of the Abkhaz army stands in front of an APC during an operation in the Kodori gorge on October 17, 2001, which separates the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia from Georgia proper